As an undergraduate student, I had a history professor who wanted nothing to do with biography. He would not even take the time to give us birth and death dates. He felt it was irrelevant. This made history deathly dull, not to mention difficult to put into a larger historical picture. Music is written by and to humans with all their flaws, idiosyncrasies, and vices. Yes, most music is not strictly autobiographical, but autobiography often explains and gives context to much of music.

This brings us to Mr. Rayburn’s odd book. He has gathered a rather wide and varied compendium of the odd, macabre, and often quite humorous stories of famous and infamous musicians and the events surrounding the meeting of their ultimate reward.

He lays his stories out into two parts, the first is a chronological examination of the strange lives, stranger deaths, and odd fates of various composers. The second section looks at the dark and weird musical miscellany.

The first example of a recorded bizarre demise is of a Greek musician names Terpander, c 675 BC. Terpander was an important founder of Greek music, revamping their notational system and improving the lyre, their primary instrument. He came to his untimely end during a performance. I guess throwing fruit at the musicians on stage was the tradition in Greece, for during his unplanned final performance he was being showered with fruit. And as he opened his mouth to sing, a fig landed in his mouth. The poor man chocked to death on stage from the praise of his fans.

Musicians have sometimes been pressed into other functions. Thomas Morley (1557-1602) became a spy for his employer. Musicians often moved from court to court, so it usually worked as a good cover to gather intelligence on opposing princelings. Unfortunately for Mr. Morley he was no James Bond. He was caught and suffered the usual punishment for spies.

Even conductors could face great risks. During the Baroque era, conductors would use a large staff to bang on the floor to keep time. Jen-Baptiste Lully (1632-1681) was known for his particularly violent temper (usually taken out on his musicians and their instruments). Maybe as poetic justice he hit his own big toe with his conductor’s stick. It became badly infected and gangrenous. Lully refused to have it amputated because he wanted to be able to dance! Without amputation, there is no recovery from gangrene.

As the title of the book hints at, skulls of various musicians formed a bizarre part of the story around the end of many of their lives. Several musicians suffered the indignity of having their heads separated from their bodies. Both before and after interment. Beethoven’s skull has a long and sordid history which even includes none other than Anton Bruckner being present when his remains were being relocated. Upon seeing the master’s skull, he grabbed it. It took several workmen to get it out of Bruckner’s hands.

We have all heard the axiom “A job expands to fill the time allowed.” This can be expressed differently: “Limit the time to do the work and the work may still get done.” One of the inherent flaws in the weekly lesson template we all use and grew up with is the lack of tight time limitation. If something is not mastered this week, there is always next week, or next month or even next year. This can be mitigated with recitals, festivals, and competitions. However, even with these, we still can put off our work until most of the available time is gone.

In my own playing, once I took my first church job which required me to have hymns, preludes, postludes, etc. ready every week without fail, I found my ability to learn a significant amount of music quickly an absolute necessity for survival. At first, I was not terribly successful and relied upon the art of “fake” more than I should have. But through the years there has been more “play” and less “fake”.

2) LIMITED MATERIAL.

As someone whose eyes have always been larger than my ability or time available, I have had to learn the value of limiting the amount of material I work on at a time. I also discovered through my cognitive psychological research that there are some pretty strong scientific reasons for limiting the amount of material one studies at a time.

There are no hard rules as to how much material can be handled but there are a number of principles which impact this. To start with there is the size of our short term memory (STM), when the STM is full (usually 5 – 7 “chunks” of material it will begin to dump information and unless it is immediately rehearsed it will be lost. The amount of material, or number of notes which can be put into a chunk (the technical term BTW) is influenced by our ability to recognize patterns and group notes by these patterns. Theoretically you could hundreds of notes into a chunk. I would imagine the stories of prodigies such as Mozart reflect his ability to quickly recognize note patterns and identify and store them quickly and efficiently.

I have toyed with writing a book about this whole process, but seem to need to limit my material at this time. This is a long and complex subject, but the key point would be to try working on shorter segments at a time and see if your learning rate doesn’t improve.

3) Different Perspectives

Ask anybody whose job involves a significant amount of problem solving and one of their most important techniques is to look at the problem from as many different perspectives as possible. Sometimes it is only after taking a fresh and different perspective can we find an answer.

In music learning this can take the form of studying melodic development or harmonic patterns, especially if this material had been neglected up until now. It could also mean memorizing a passage backwards, ie, the last measure, then the next to last measure and so on until the passage is learned. This is great for Bach Fugues.

As teachers we are ideally teaching our students as many techniques or methods as possible because if we are successful, these students of ours will continue to play and learn music long after lessons have stopped. They need as many tools as we can give them.

4) HARD STUFF FIRST.

As a river will seek the route of least resistance, left to our own devices we will do the same. It is much more pleasant to play music which is easy from either being not very challenging or has been previously learned. Trying something new or especially hard requires much more discipline than playing a piece learned many years ago.

This also applies to difficult sections within a piece. A difficult passage may require four, five, ten or a hundred times as much time and effort as the rest of the work. If that extra effort is not made, the passage will never become as easy as the rest of the music. Unless it is attacked early and hard it will always be the weak spot within the larger work. We all know where these problem areas are; if we start with them and work on the “hard stuff first” the piece will progress evenly and quickly without the constant drag of the “hard stuff”.

5) PRIORITIZE.

One of the greatest lessons a student can learn in the course of learning to play a musical instrument is the importance of prioritization. In every week’s assignment there are greater and lesser difficulties and higher and lower priorities. Learning to order one’s work so that the maximum is accomplished with the greatest efficiency is one of the keys to success in life. Musical study provides a microcosm where you can learn this lesson.

Each week there are some items which are critical for immediate master (recitals and contests provide these nicely) and other items of less importance. Learning to address the critical without neglecting the less important is a life’s lesson we all can revisit.

6) MENTALLY ACTIVE “HOW CAN I REMEMBER THAT NOTE?”

I shudder to think about how much time I wasted in my own practice with mindless repetition. I would often play scales and my literature with thoughtless and endless repetition; hoping somehow that I would learn the music and usually through brute effort eventually succeeding.

As I got older and busier and the literature I was playing became greatly more complex I realized I needed to become more efficient and productive in my efforts. One of the breakthroughs was learning to ask the question: “How can I remember that note?”

This question causes one to look for relationships between passages, relationships within passages; anything which would aid in understanding the function and purpose of each individual note.

The boarder understanding of a note’s relationship to the rest of the work allows you to bring a fuller musical understanding to bear in addition to aiding memory.

7) THE KISS PRINCIPLE.

One of my favorite rules is: Keep It Simple Stupid! I am often guilty of analyzing a passage or even a written performance instruction to death.

This also reminds us that simplicity is the beginning of expression. We should project the central idea or line and then all else becomes secondary. Playing too many important things makes for a cacophonous mess, or is simply a case of lazy playing. Think about the single most important element and make sure that is clear first.

Many editors also will suggest elaborate fingering schemes which add unnecessary layers of difficulty to otherwise simple passages. I am not nearly smart enough to remember all of this fancy finger dancing so I always choose simple, easy to remember fingering patterns.

8) DISTRIBUTED PRACTICE.

We have all been guilty of trying to cram for a test, or writing a paper the night before it is due. What is the usual outcome? Not good! The human mind needs time to fully absorb new information, neurological pathways take time to form and become stable. Part of becoming a professional musician is the ability to absorb and perform music in as short of a time as possible. However this ability is really a reflection of solid earlier study which created a broad familiarity with a particular type of music. Taking time to carefully learn something new, giving yourself time to revisit the material many times over many days or months is the surest way to fully absorb and integrate this new material.

9) LISTEN IN DEPTH

Back in my student days it was a cumbersome or nearly impossible to listen to different interpretations of a work one right after the other. The school library may have a few duplicate recordings but not many. Today you can hear dozens of different renditions on YouTube of just about anything. Try this exercise: Listen to the first minute of a work played by four or five different musicians. Do it again and this time observe the different details of tempo, dynamics, articulation. Observe how the music changes as these details are changed. How does tempo change the character of the melody? How does the articulation change your focus of attention? Is there a counter melody somewhere in the accompaniment? How does this affect the texture? A great piece of music cannot be played fully all at once; it contains more material than can be brought out in a single performance. Learning to listen below the surface can open a whole new horizon of understanding.

10) DO IT RIGHT, NOW.

Your subconscious mind records your actions without judgment. It doesn’t know you missed the F# again, and AGAIN! Every mistake becomes part of your learning. That repeated mistake will to take on a life of its own, like a monster from a horror flick; it never dies and has a hundred lives to torment you with.

Slow, careful practice is the only route to success, to speed up before you have cleaned up will simply give you a fast mess.

There is no time like the present to be perfect!

11) KNOW THE LANGUAGE.

Music is a foreign language and it has many dialects. There is vocabulary, grammar and syntax, meaning and context. As with any language, the better you understand all of its subtleties, the better you can express yourself in that language.

If you compare the harmonic language of Bela Bartok with Serge Rachmaninov’s you can see a significant difference in their use of dissonance even though they lived at the same time. The most stringent dissonances in Rachmaninov’s music would be almost consonant in Bartok’s music.

Understanding the syntax of music allows for a quicker and more accurate recognition of patterns and structure. Without this understanding everything is meaningless randomness which happens to sound nice. While French may be pleasing to listen to as a harmonious language, I have no idea of the meaning behind those sounds so my appreciation and understanding is severely limited.

12) EAT AN ELEPHANT.

The only way to eat an elephant is also the only way you can learn a 30 minute concerto: one bite at a time, any more and you will choke on it.

13) THE LOVE OF SPEED IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.

I say this as a lover of speed. I have worn out many metronomes in my life, not from throwing them out of frustration, but from use. I work meticulously to achieve my ambitious tempo goals and then exceed them by 10% to ensure ease. Yet all too often I get caught up on faster and forget there is more to music than speed. Many times there is a lot less music with more speed. Finding the balance between a tempo with brings life and one which crushes music is a constant struggle.

14) ENDING IS BEGINNING OR BEGINNING IS ENDING.

I have found two meanings for this rule, one practical and one life changing.

First the practical. Left to our own devises we will start our work at the beginning and work our way to the end. Cognitive science explains some of the phenomenon we experience with this approach. The two primary challenges we encounter involve issues of interference and recency. Interference occurs when new or old material will block or interfere with recall. Sometimes the new material is similar enough to the old material as to create a conflicted memory. (This happens a lot in music!) Recency is the principle that we remember the most recent event better than older events. If we start at the beginning and play to the end we will remember the beginning well because it is the beginning and had our clearest focus; and the end almost as well because it is recent. But the middle is some kind of vague muddle of notes we know we played but have no idea what we did.

If you begin at the end and work backwards toward the beginning; first leaning the last measure and then the next to last measure, playing both; and then adding another measure and so on; each measure has a chance to be the beginning. Your retention of the middle is greatly enhanced.

A few years ago, while reviewing my repertory list I realized that I had learned about 1/3 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. Into my silly head popped this notion that it would be a good thing to learn and play them all as preludes and postludes at my church. It took several years to complete this project of playing the entire set of sonatas sequentially. When I finally completed the project and had a chance to look back on my work I had a profound sense of what the poet T. S. Elliot meant by:

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

15) TWO HANDS AT A TIME, ALL OF THE TIME.

When I was a young student, my teacher insisted I first learn each hand separately and only then play both hands together. I found this more than a little frustrating. I always felt I had to start all over again when I put my hands together; all of the proceeding work with hands separate was a waste. Eventually in a pique of rebelliousness I quit playing with my hands separately, except for when I was asked to do so in a lesson.

I have often wondered about where the notion of learning each hand separately originated. I can picture a scenario like this: JS Bach tells CPE Bach he should pay extra attention to the right hand passage he continuously mis-plays. CPE tells his student he should play the right hand a couple times to fix a problem. Beethoven then tells his student Czerny that his right hand is very sloppy and he needs to fix it before the next lesson or he will use the ruler. Finally Czerny tells everybody to practice each hand separately.

So let’s break the cycle. The piano is a two handed instrument requiring a constant partnership between the hands. A good sight reader doesn’t run through each hand before playing, he just plays both hands immediately.

Now before you completely write me off as a crank, I will allow brief hands separate work but only in the interest of clarification of technical details and fingering. After that put them together!

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

I am not a trained theologian, I am simply a person of faith who has walked through many and diverse corners of the Christian faith. Having recorded from cover to cover 8 complete hymnals and significant portions out a several of others, posting them on YouTube, I have gained a perspective on the width and breadth of the Body of Christ. Hymnody and faith poetry lacks the explicit teaching which may be found in more didactic writings, which means it can be dangerous to draw too direct of an inference of teaching from any one hymn or poem. By its vary nature, poetry is wrapped within a certain level of ambiguity. However, when you are looking at a body of literature such as the 400 – 700 hymns found within a typical hymnal, certain conclusions can be formed.

While each hymnal is designed to meet the needs of a particular denomination or group of denominations I often found a significant level of overlap between the various books. However, the areas of uniqueness is where we can begin to discern the variety which we find within the Body of Christ.

The impact of this project

This project has impacted my faith in two ways. It has left me even more adrift as to my own personal identity from a faith family perspective. (I grew up the son of a Presbyterian pastor so I was steeped in Reformed theology from childhood which certainly influences how I see others.) But it has been many years since I could identify a particular denomination as “my own.” This lose started when I was a teenager as the old “United Presbyterian” denomination all but abandoned traditional Scriptural teaching in its eager embrace of secularism.

The second and most important impact has been my vastly wider understanding of the totality of the Body of Christ. I think this background, in many respects has well prepared me for this broad ranging project. This is not ecumenicalism where differences are glossed over or reduced so the lowest level of agreement which usually results in abandonment of most essential beliefs in an effort to get everybody in the tent. But rather an ability to see through another’s eyes.

In 1 Corinthians 12:15 Paul asks if the foot says it is not a hand therefore it is not part of the body does this cause it to cease to be part of the body. In the same way, because a Baptist denomination sings of a more personal and emotional experience of faith than say the Episcopalians, it does not mean one is not part of the same body. We need the heart and the mind!

Each of these hymnals had their strengths and embarrassing weaknesses. I can show you exactly where the scourge of “Jesus is my boyfriend,” and praise choruses came from.

I recorded an entire Lutheran hymnal without a single Bach choral in it. And actually all of the settings were stripped of anything which could be considered “ornamental.” Yet, there was great beauty in it austerity.

An early UCC hymnal showed great concern about acting justly in the world, even as it seemed to move Scripture into a less important position. (Ironically, this book also had the largest patriotic song section.)

I am currently about half way through the 1998 Catholic Hymn Book, a hymnal used primarily in the UK from what I can learn. This book shares many hymns with other “Protestant” hymnals, particularly the Episcopal and Presbyterian. And yet, there is a large section of Marian hymns and Saint veneration hymns which would never be found in any Protestant hymnal. Maybe the RC is too vested with Marian theology, but do the Protestants lose something by virtually ignoring this woman except at Christmas?

Final thoughts

We all have sinned and sin permeates all we do, that includes our hymnals and the organizations which give form to our faith. And yet, Christ’s work gets done. The good news of the resurrection and our redemption is spread daily. The hand and the foot, though they may not fully understand each other and at times are even quite antagonistic towards each other manage to move and feed the body. The mind may think and grapple with the deep truths of our faith, but the heart leaps for joy in our salvation and mourns for the lost souls.

We, my brothers and sisters, must never forget we are ONE body, but not all the same, and it is in the un-sameness we should glory in. The Baptist can teach the Episcopalians to express a childlike joy and the Episcopalians can teach the Baptist about the beauty and value of corporate worship. Not that the hand becomes the foot, but the hand can better understand and value the foot.

Claude Debussy wrote L’isle Joyeuse as an expression of great joy. Though he didn’t know our Lord, his work is still in His service. I find this music to be a near perfect expression of the joy we will experience when the promise of the garden finds its final fulfillment.

C. S. Lewis, in his great commentary on the Book of Revelations, The Last Battle, Book 7 of the Chronicles of Narnia, describes the reaction of the children, now adults, kings and queens each, and all of the talking beasts as they have entered the door between the two worlds, the old Narnia and the new Narnia. They had just witnessed the end and destruction of the old Narnia and begin to notice their new world.

Aslan, the golden lion, commands them to go Further up, Further in! And in a breath he is flying to the west.

Then they all went forward together, always westward, for that seemed to be the direction Aslan had meant when he cried out “Further up and further in.” Many other creatures were slowly moving the same way, but that grassy country was very wide and there was no crowding.

It still seemed to be early and the morning freshness was in the air. They kept on stopping to look round and to look behind them, partly because it was so beautiful but partly also because there was something about it which they could not understand.

“Peter,” said Lucy, “where is this, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know,” said the High King. “It reminds me of somewhere but I can’t give it a name. Could it be somewhere we once stayed for a holiday when we were very, very small?”

“It would have to have been a jolly good holiday,” said Eustace. “I bet there isn’t a country like this anywhere in our world. Look at the colours? You couldn’t get a blue like the blue on those mountains in our world.”

“Is it not Aslan’s country?” said Tirian.

“Not like Aslan’s country on top of that mountain beyond the eastern end of the world,” said Jill. “I’ve been there.”

“If you ask me,” said Edmund, “Its like somewhere in the Narnian world. Look at those mountains ahead—and the big ice-mountains beyond them. Surely they’re rather like the mountains we used to see from Narnia, the ones up Westward beyond the Waterfall?”

“Yes, so they are,” said Peter. “Only these are bigger.”

“I don’t think those ones are so very like anything in Narnia,” said Lucy. “But look there.” She pointed south ward to their left, and everyone stopped and turned to look. “Those hills,” said Lucy, “the nice woody ones and the blue ones behind—aren’t they very like the southern border of Narnia?”

“And yet they’re not like,” said Lucy. “They’re different. They have more colours on them and they look further away than I remembered and they’re more … more … oh, I don’t know….”

“More like the real thing,” said the Lord Digory softly.

Suddenly Farsight the Eagle spread his wings, soared thirty or forty feet up into the air, circled round and then alighted on the ground.

“Kings and Queens,” he cried, “we have all been blind. We are only beginning to see where we are. From up there I have seen it all—Ettinsmuir, Beaversdam, the Great River, and Cair Paravel still shining on the edge of the Eastern Sea. Narnia is not dead. This is Narnia.”

“But how can it be?” said Peter. “For Aslan told us older ones that we should never return to Narnia, and here we are.”

“Yes,” said Eustace. “And we saw it all destroyed and the sun put out.”

“And it’s all so different,” said Lucy.

“The Eagle is right,” said the Lord Digory. “Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. It had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia, which has always been here and always will be here. You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream.”

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Come further up, come further in!”

He shook his mane and sprang forward into a great gallop—a Unicorn’s gallop which, in our world, would have carried him out of sight in a few moments. But now a most strange thing happened. Everyone else began to run, and they found, to their astonishment, that they could keep up with him: not only the Dogs and the humans but even fat little Puzzle and short-legged Poggin the Dwarf. The air flew in their faces as if they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen. The country flew past as if they were seeing it from the windows of an express train. Faster and faster they raced, but no one got hot or tired or out of breath.

And well he might. For now they saw before them Caldron Pool and beyond the Pool, the high unclimbable cliffs and, pouring down the cliffs, thousands of tons of water every second, flashing like diamonds in some places and dark, glassy green in others, the Great Waterfall; and already the thunder of it was in their ears.

“Don’t stop! Further up and further in,” called Farsight, tilting his flight a little upwards.

“It’s all very well for him,” said Eustace, but Jewel also cried out:

“Don’t stop. Further up and further in! Take it in your stride.”

“This is absolutely crazy,” said Eustace to Edmund.

“I know. And yet——” said Edmund.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Lucy. “Have you noticed one can’t feel afraid, even if one wants to? Try it.”

A long valley opened ahead and great snow-mountains, now much nearer, stood up against the sky.

“Further up and further in,” cried Jewel and instantly they were off again.

We do not gather to celebrate a birth, but what that birth represents, the God who told Adam and Eve, “I got this” has written yet another chapter in the story of our redemption. It has also been promised that this world will pass away and He has prepared a more glorious home for us. One which is beyond comparison to this one. One where you can run without growing weary and mount up on Eagle’s wings. Where sorrow and tears and fear are gone forever. A place of peace and rest… and great, unending joy.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius gives his son Laertes the advice to above all else to be true to himself. Honesty with one’s self is a lifelong process. In the world of music practice it can begin with the simple step of writing down how much you practice. Even if you never total the time or even give it a second look, you have established a measure from which to judge your efforts.

Goal setting is critical for any endeavor. If the requirement is to have a piece up to tempo by a certain date, you can break down the steps necessary for the accomplishment. If these intermediary steps are not met, you must be honest with yourself that the larger goal is in danger and likely not to be met unless additional effort is made. If a secure memory is the goal and little has been committed to memory a week before the deadline, don’t kid yourself, a secure memory is not likely to be the outcome.

We will bear the complete responsibility for our success or failure for the vast majority of our life. While as a student, it is easy to be dependent upon your teachers to order and plan your work and goals. However, you are a student for only a short time and will have to order and plan your work for decades after your student years.

2) THOU SHALT KNOW AND LOVE THY BEAT.

The most important thing in music is rhythm, the most important thing to rhythm is the beat, and the most important thing to the beat is its steadiness.

I can play a familiar melody such as Mary Had a Little Lamb, and make it completely unrecognizable by radically changing the rhythm. However, it is still easily recognizable if it is played in a serial tone row, (maintaining the melodic shape while using large leaps and wild chromaticism) but keep the original rhythmic patterns.

There are two components to a secure sense of rhythm. First you must KNOW where in the score the beat falls. The beat can be any note value assigned the primary rhythmic motive function. You must understand where in the score these beats occur.

The next part is the “Loving”. You must have a physical sense of the beat. There is no guessing allowed in the beat. Clap your hands, stomp your feet, jump up and down, tap a foot, tap a toe, count out loud; do something to physically feel the presence of the beat or pulse.

Now put these together. Know where you belong in the score as these beats you feel come by. No matter what, you must be where you belong! If your playing is controlled by a steady, known beat, with a thorough understanding as to where you belong in the score with the beat, you will have a secure rhythm. Failure will make your playing rhythmically unintelligible.

3) THOU SHALT NOT LOOK AT THY HANDS.

Cognitive scientists will tell us that interrupting the visual flow if information is a significant determent to learning. Looking from the score to your hands and back to the score breaks up the information flow into your memory, creating a garbled mess. It is critical for the mastery of playing, that the fingers and arms learn to judge distances without the aid of the eyes. Make the mistakes and learn from them, but do not let the eyes become the crutch of the hands.

4) THOU SHALT USE BOTH HANDS AT ALL TIMES.

As a young piano student my piano teacher insisted I learn each hand individually before I put them together. I found this very frustrating because I never felt the work I did with my hands individually did anything to prepare me for playing with both hands simultaneously. As I got older and more experienced I came to realize where the notion of practicing hands separately came from. This led me to more firmly believe practicing hands separately is largely a waste of time.

Learning to play one hand at a time, with the other completely uninvolved, does not prepare you to play both hands simultaneously. All that is accomplished is the illusion that the music has been learned. However the two-handed co-ordination needed to actually play doesn’t develop without two handed work.

Now some single hand study can be useful for working out specific technical problems or developing an understanding of a complex figuration. However the time should be limited and the opposite hand introduced immediately.

5) THOU SHALT PRACTICE EVERY DAY.

While this might be self evident to those of us who have made daily practice a life time discipline, we shouldn’t assume everybody shares our understanding of its importance.

In the studio of a client of mine there is a poster showing the difference in how long it takes to do 100 hours of practice. At 5 minutes a day, or 30 minutes a week, it takes 4 years to practice 100 hours, but 30 minutes a day it only takes 9 months to do the same work. Cognitive scientists can also demonstrate the greater learning efficiency which occurs to more substantial study periods done on a very regular basis.

The 30 minute per day practicing student will actually accomplish 5 or 6 times as much learning with the same total time invested as the 30 minute per week student. Athletic coaches figured this out long time ago, hence the daily practices most school athletic teams employ.

6) THOU SHALT CONCENTRATE AT ALL TIMES.

Technical facility is only developed with repetition, sometimes massive amounts of repetition. And here lies the problem. It is very easy to let the mind wander far afield as we slug through the 20th or 30th repetition of some passage. On a certain level mechanical facility is only arrived at when conscious control has faded far into the back ground. A certain degree of “mindlessness” is our goal. But this is not a time for day dreaming, but rather a stepping back and becoming mindful of a higher level of activity. As mastery is achieved incrementally, you become aware of a larger context. You fit the details into the larger context of the phrase or series of phrases.

7) THOU SHALT NOT SAY “CAN’T”.

This is the most destructive word which can ever be uttered! It is forbidden in my studio for it is a lie. Unless you are missing a finger or a hand, you most certainly can, you just need some help and time. “Can’t” means I quit and accept failure; it is a statement of finality.

Another word which will get my ire is: “try”. In the words of the great philosopher Yoda, “Do or do not, there is no try.” “Try” implies “I expect to fail.” What a self-fulfilling prophesy! It is much better to say: “I will do this!” and then determine what must be done to succeed. If you decide that the cost of “doing” is too great then you can decide to “do not”. The use of these simple words changes our focus from anticipated success to expected failure.

While this does not guarantee success it certainly increases the chances of success and it makes us much more uplifting and encouraging people to be around.

8) THOU SHALT PRACTICE THY SCALES.

These are the building blocks of all technique. Certainly in the “common practice era” scales were the basic building blocks of music however; the sequential finger work found in diatonic scales is most certainly applicable to more modern sequential patterns. Scales are actually very hard to play well and need the special attention they receive. I have known several adult players who had reasonably developed techniques, yet had never spent much time specifically on scales. This was very evident in their scale playing and other passage work. Smooth flowing scale passage involves a very high degree of technical mastery which is very hard to achieve without specific and extensive effort.

It doesn’t take hours of daily effort (though that is not a bad idea when one is younger and occasionally when one is older) but a lot can be accomplished by even 10 or 15 minutes every day, right at the beginning of the day. Plan out a technical regime of scales, arpeggios, chords, and etc. in all keys for the month, you will find that your progress becomes accumulative. The effort in learning D major will improve the performance incrementally of all other keys. After a couple of years of this effort you will find yourself with a great mastery of the basic building blocks of Western music.

9) THOU SHALT NOT WIGGLE THY BOTTOM ON THY BENCH.

Though there are some artists who regularly bounced around on their benches, I don’t think this is a mannerism suitable for most players. Your playing levers (arms, wrists, hands, and fingers) need a stable fulcrum in order to operate with maximum efficiency. Moving around reduces the stability of the primary fulcrum (the torso) and can be spatially disorienting. I think the best models for our students are not the young stars who emote and gyrate as they play but rather the really old timers who sit with great repose and make the least extraneous effort.

10) THOU SHALT EXHAUST THE PAGE OF ALL ITS DETAILS.

Did you see that “p”? What does “senza sordino” mean? Did you see that accent? Some scores are full of performance instructions and others have no obvious markings. The details can include the obvious dynamic and expressive markings and also the much more subtle harmonic and melodic “markings”. Work to understand every word and symbol a composer uses and also look for the stuff “between the lines.” Every composer has a harmonic vocabulary which is unique to them. Harmony shows the ebb and flow of emotional tension. In order to understand the form and function of phrases you must start with the harmony; which chords contain the greatest emotional tension and where does that tension get released?

I work in two areas; Christian hymnody and solo classical piano music. My first hymn recording project was going to be a Christmas present for my parents of 50 hymns from the Presbyterian 1955 Hymnbook. But there are over 600 hymns in it and I just couldn’t figure out which ones not to record… so I did them all! This led to more hymnals being recorded and more waiting impatiently in line. As of this writing I have recorded over 1900 hymns. I have recorded the Presbyterian 1955 Hymnbook, Episcopal 1940 Hymnal, Broadman 1940 Hymnal, and am about 3/4’s complete with the Lutheran 1941 Hymnal.

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Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid;
star of the east, the horizon adorning,
guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.2. Cold on his cradle the dewdrops are shining;
low lies his head with the beasts of the stall;
angels adore him in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Savior of all!

3. Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
odors of Edom and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?

4. Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
vainly with gifts would his favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart’s adoration,
dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

5. Hail the blest morn when the great mediator
Down from the regions of glory descends.
Shepherds, go worship the Babe in the manger;
Lo! for His guard the bright angels attend.

Reginald Heber was born at Malpas, England April 4, 1783; educated at Brasenose College at Oxford; he was made Vicar at his father’s church in Hodnet in 1807; and made Bishop of Calcutta in 1823; he died in Trichinoploy, India (now known as Tiruchirappalli) on April 3, 1826.

The opening line: “Brightest and best of the sons of the morning” requires some careful thinking and examination. Both Jesus and Satan are referred to as a “morning star” in Scripture.

Satan in Isaiah 4:12: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!

And Jesus in Revelations 22:16: 16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

Satan was a “Day Star” or a “Morning Star” in some translations, yet he was just another created being. An exalted created being, enjoying the presence of God, but just another piece of God’s creation. However, due to his pride and jealousy he was cut down and banished from God’s presence.

Jesus, however, is the “Bright Morning Star,” the Star which out shines all others and from which all light emanates. This is the Star which chose to be humble and to give up His glory in order to redeem His creation. It is this star which is the dawn to our darkness and leads us to the cradle of our redeemer.

The angels who declared to the social outcasts, the shepherds minding their sheep at night, “Do you have any idea what has just happened??!!” The angels are keeping watch over the sleeping child, surrounded by a vanguard of cattle. The Maker and Monarch of us all is sleeping in a feeding trough! The Glory of Heaven has come down and taken on the very weight of our flesh!

Within the gifts brought to Him, the entire world brings gifts. Perfume from Edom, gems from the mountains, pearls from the ocean, myrrh from the forest, and gold from the mines. All of this is vain for the only gift desired is an obedient heart.

As James says: James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

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1 Standing at the portal
Of the opening year,
Words of comfort meet us,
Hushing every fear;
Spoken through the silence
By our Father’s voice,
Tender, strong, and faithful,
Making us rejoice.
Onward, then, and fear not,
Children of the day;
For His word shall never,
Never pass away.

2 “I, the Lord, am with thee,
Be thou not afraid;
I will help and strengthen,
Be thou not dismayed.
Yea, I will uphold thee
With My own right hand;
Thou art called and chosen
In My sight to stand.”
Onward, then, and fear not,
Children of the day;
For His word shall never,
Never pass away.

3 For the year before us,
O what rich supplies!
For the poor and needy
Living streams shall rise;
For the sad and sinful
Shall His grace abound;
For the faint and feeble
Perfect strength be found.
Onward, then, and fear not,
Children of the day;
For His word shall never,
Never pass away.

4 He will never fail us,
He will not forsake:
His eternal covenant
He will never break.
Resting on His promise,
What have we to fear?
God is all-sufficient
For the coming year.
Onward, then, and fear not,
Children of the day;
For His word shall never,
Never pass away.

Frances Havergal would often write a hymn for the New Year and send them to her friends on post cards or letters.

A portal is more than just a door. A portal was an entrance of significance, often elaborately decorated. So we stand at the grand portal for a new year. And God’s words offer comfort and assurance for the coming year. The tender words of our Father will never pass away as Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:35.

35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

In the second stanza God promises to be with his people, this promise comes from Isaiah which Havergal quotes nearly verbatim.

“Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. 11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. 12 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. 13 For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”

In the following stanzas we sing of all the promises we have received in Scripture and of our trust in their fulfillment as Jesus said in Matthew: His word shall never, Never pass away. We can rest in the comfort that our all-sufficient God will meet our every need and will be with us every day of the coming year.

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3 No more let Sins and Sorrows grow,
Nor Thorns infest the Ground:
He comes to make his Blessings flow
Far as the Curse is found.

4 He rules the World with Truth and Grace,
And makes the Nations prove
The Glories of his Righteousness,
And Wonders of his Love.

According to Hymnary.org, which is the largest online repository of hymns, this is by far the most popular hymn in North American hymnals, appearing in over 1300 hymnals and yet, it makes no mention of the birth, star, Mary, or anything else which would directly tie it to the Advent, Christmas, or even Epiphany seasons.

Isaac Watts, as a young man, would frequently complain to his father about the abysmal and outdated hymns they would sing in church. Keep in mind Watts was a mere teenager in the year 1700. Not much has changed in over 300 years. After growing tired of Isaac’s unending teenage griping, his father says: “If you think you can do better, then write your own!” Now Dad’s admonition didn’t fall on the usual deaf ears of a teenager. Watts began to write new hymns set in “modern English.” He largely continued the Reformation tradition of using the Psalms and other parts of Scripture as a direct inspiration or format for his new hymns.

John Calvin had first introduced this principle for hymn writing during the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland. He commissioned completely new setting of all 150 Psalms in lyrical prose (that is metrical and rhyming) along with what was supposed to be 150 new tunes for these hymns. (If you ever see a hymn tune name such as “Old 100th” this is the tune for the 100th Psalm.) (The music composers fell a little short and a number of the tunes were pressed into additional service to fill the gap.) This Genevian Psalter was soon moved to Scotland and was translated into the Scottish Psalter and formed the basis for much of the music used in the Anglican, Reformed, and Presbyterian churches throughout England and its commonwealth, including the US.

Watts uses Psalm 98 to write this hymn.

98 O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done marvelous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

2 The Lord hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.

3 He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

4 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

5 Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.

6 With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King.

7 Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

8 Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together

9 Before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.

This is one of the most joyous of all the Psalms. We are called to sing a new song because of the great things God has done. Watts looks at this Psalm though with a Christological understanding. In Vs 2, the Lord having made his salvation known, becomes an exclamation that the Lord has indeed come. This good news is so great all of creation exclaims it in a loud noise. The seas roar and the floods clap their hands and the hills even join in!

The third stanza doesn’t come from Psalm 98, but Watts adds it to complete his Christological picture. It takes us back the beginning of the story, when Adam and Eve sinned against God and were banished form the garden, a curse was placed upon them. The ground would yield thorns and sorrow would overtake them. But now the curse has been removed far away and His blessings will overflow to us. Just as was promised when God said: “I’ve got this” as He covered their nakedness and promised them salvation will one day come.

The Lord our God, who keeps his covenants has come to judge the earth in righteousness and equity. For this He rules the World with Truth and Grace, And makes the Nations prove The Glories of his Righteousness, And Wonders of his Love.

Of all the hymns we sing during this season, this one deserves year round use. The Lord has indeed come to us in the form of a child resting in a feeding trough. But he has promised much more. He will come again and since he is a God who keeps his promises, this is indeed something worthy of great joy. Not happiness, but overflowing, unbounded, and great joy!

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This hymn began its life as a children’s hymn. The author, Cecil Alexander, who also wrote: “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” wrote a large number of songs for children. And as typical for that era, the text would be highly didactic, giving instruction in theology as well as what was considered proper behavior of children. These latter verses of the original poem (stanzas 3 & 4) are almost always left out in modern hymnals. When these middle stanzas are removed, what is left is a powerful and straight forward exposition of key Christian beliefs.

Within the first stanza we have the identity of the birth place, Bethlehem, as King David’s royal city. This reaches centuries back in time to Israel’s early days and the ascension of King David. And within this royal city is a cattle shed. Some of us of had the, um, pleasure of visiting a barn full of cattle; it is hardly the place one would expect the Son of God to be born in. Yet, what is foolishness to man is wisdom to God. Jesus, the Son of the Living God, whose own birth was more humble and crude than any of ours, chose to surrender His throne to redeem us, his lost flock.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and David, came from Heaven and chose to live amongst us as flesh and blood. He chose a stable for his shelter and a feeding trough as his cradle.

Yet, this is just part of the fulfillment of His promise. In time we will see Him at last. Through the redemption which will come from this child, He will lead us home. Not to this poor, odorous stable, but in the glory of Heaven.

Micah 5:2-4

2But you, O Bethlehem Eph′rathah,
who are little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in travail has brought forth;
then the rest of his brethren shall return
to the people of Israel.4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.

]]>http://www.ANDREWREMILLARD.COM/2018/12/21/once-in-royal-davids-city/feed/01565Away in A Mangerhttp://www.ANDREWREMILLARD.COM/2018/12/19/away-in-a-manger/
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Away in a Manger is probably the most popular hymn for which we have no idea who was the author. It first appeared in a song collection published in Philadelphia by the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in a book called: “Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families” with only the first two verses in 1885. It has been spuriously attributed to Martin Luther, but there is no evidence of that being the case.

There was a paper written back in the mid 1940’s which catalogued over 40 different tunes in which this poem had been set. In the US the tunes Mueller and Cradle Song are the most common now and in Great Brittan, Normandy Carol is very well known, particularly in High Church settings and also the Presbyterian Church.

Yet despite its huge popularity over its relatively short life and mysterious past, it actually presents a knotty theological problem. The first stanza doesn’t present any problems, however the second stanza can, if interpreted certain ways, actually advocate an old heresy. In the second line, “but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes” can easily imply the docetic doctrine that the historical and bodily existence of Jesus was a mere semblance of reality. Jesus only seemed human, his human form was merely an illusion.

But this is not at all what the Scriptures teach. This birth is God taking on the flesh and blood of mankind. It was not an illusionary blood which was spilled on the cross, but the blood of a man who knew pain, hunger, and temptation. A man who had a full human existence yet untainted by sin. It is only this type of man who could give his life as a blood atonement for our sin.

Our Lord and God, took the form and substance of his creation. He was hungry, thirsty, became tired, wept at the loss of a friend, and ultimately suffered the cross for our redemption. A mere illusion couldn’t have been such a propitiation for our sin.

Whether this was the intent of the author or an Elizabethan admonition for children not to cry, is impossible to know, however it shows the importance of carefully considering the words we sing and what we truly mean!